Landscaping

The Costa Mesa City Council is expected to sign off tonight on landscaping improvements at the 405 Freeway interchange at Fairview Road. Palm Desert-based Sierra Landscape Co. Inc. will be awarded a $420,130 bid for the landscaping, which will include the planting of trees and shrubs. The company presented the city with the lowest bid after Tal Cal Engineering Inc. withdrew its offer. “Fairview is an important gateway to the city. A lot of people use this ramp to access our community and the city is always looking for improvements,” said Raja Sethuraman, Costa Mesa Transportation Services manager.

INSIDE CITY HALL Here are some of the decisions from Monday's City Council meeting: APPEAL OF MINOR DESIGN REVIEW On Jan. 16, the zoning administrator approved a permit for John Crowe for outdoor storage of vehicles in the 800 block of West 18th Street. Councilman Allan Mansoor appealed the decision because he wants to see landscaping added to the general industrial property to improve the appearance of the location with a 10-foot landscape setback.

-- Noaki Schwartz The city received an honorable mention for its engineering on the MacArthur Boulevard widening and realignment project. The recognition was part of an Engineering Project Achievement Award presented by the Orange County Engineering Council on Feb. 26. Don Webb, Public Works Director, accepted the award on the city's behalf. The project was to widen the existing roadway to accommodate more vehicles. The city was careful with the construction in order to maintain smooth traffic flow and have a minimum imposition to tourists and holiday shoppers.

Paul Clinton A feud brewing inside the gates of one of the city's ritzier condominium communities has spilled over into the courts as a breakaway faction of homeowners battle to unseat their president. Attorneys for homeowners leading the coup scored their third legal victory Tuesday, when an Orange County Superior Court judge denied the homeowner association's attempt to silence its members. "Our clients have been sued twice now," attorney Philip Ashman sad. "We believe all those legal actions are meritless."

Seeking to control West Coast Highway's landscaping, the Newport Beach City Council voted Tuesday to keep trying to acquire the road from the state. It may take special legislation, city leaders said, to get enough state funds to compensate for the city's additional maintenance costs and liability. West Cost Highway's lush multimillion-dollar landscape plans could have to be scaled back if the city ends up working within the state's guidelines. A panel of citizens recently spent months drawing up the plans, and spent about $30,000 in consulting fees.

Fence status quo is better than change In regard to the proposed offensive fence ordinance ("Fence changes on hold," Saturday), I agree with the majority of Burbank citizens that it is totally unnecessary. Alternately, any fence ordinance should be eliminated or expanded to give every Burbank citizen the right to build or plant anything on their property that does not infringe on public safety, as they have done for years. The status quo of never enforcing the outdated existing ordinance has generated beautiful variety in height and design of fences, hedges and landscaping that gives Burbank its charming residential character in an urban environment.

To Costa Mesa officials, adding landscaped medians to Placentia Avenue would help spruce up the Westside. But to construction-weary business owners, the median project looks like a roadblock in the path of commerce. The city had planned to spend as much as $500,000 putting up to 12 medians landscaped with trees and flowers on Placentia Avenue between Wilson Street and the Newport Beach boundary. The council on Tuesday doubled the size of the project so medians could run up to 20% of the street's length.

Noaki Schwartz CORONA DEL MAR -- As part of the community's centennial anniversary in 2004, the Business Improvement District has released elaborate plans to beautify the village by landscaping the intersection where East Coast Highway meets MacArthur Boulevard. "It's a story about big ideas. We started about six or seven years ago -- it's been a long road," said chairman Don Glasgow, adding that the plan has received the support of business owners and residents alike.

A bill that would allow the establishment of a state veterans cemetery in Orange County earned unanimous support in the Assembly's Veterans Affairs Committee, the bill's author, Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva (D-Fullerton), announced. The bill is expected to be heard in the Appropriations Committee next week. Quirk-Silva, who chairs the Veterans Affairs Committee, said in a statement, "Orange County's veterans and their families deserve an accessible location to celebrate the life and contributions of the brave men and women who have courageously served our nation.

For residents near Dover Drive, the ongoing construction on their street has a silver lining. Though they have suffered through delays in the sewer replacement project, new medians and landscaping are being planned for the street when the replacement is finished, according to a presentation to the Newport Beach City Council on Tuesday. An Orange County Sanitation District project for sewer rehabilitation, the Dover Drive Trunk project began last summer and is expected to be complete in October or November, instead of July.

Political season is in full swing, as are the endorsements. Businesswoman Diane Dixon , a candidate for the Newport Beach's 1st City Council District, has secured the backing of Newport Beach Councilman Tony Petros and city Planning Commissioner Fred Ameri . "Diane is independent, she listens and she's a problem-solver," Petros said, according to a news release. "Those are the qualities you like to see in a council member. I'm looking forward to working with her. " Dixon also has endorsements from former Sen. Marian Bergeson , former Newport Beach Mayor Evelyn Hart , former City Manager and Councilman Robert Shelton , state Sen. Mimi Walters (R-Irvine)

While some Newport Beach residents eagerly await the opening of Marina Park in two years, others already have cause for celebration. They've been promised some of the location's sand. To make way for the 23-slip marina planned for the new Balboa Peninsula park, crews will soon dredge more than 40,000 cubic yards of material from the harbor and redistribute it throughout the city's shoreline. It's a perfect source for reusable beach material — a highly sought-after commodity for beach dwellers who experience, quite literally, life's shifting sands.

At one point Wednesday evening, Richard Mehren wondered aloud if any of the 34 ideas suggested for Fairview Park last summer were going to be discussed, much less happen. As the chairman of the park's citizens advisory committee led the conversation for possible additions to the park's 95-acre southwest quadrant, he saw idea after idea receiving little feedback and consequently being scrapped. "Thirty-four items, and we don't get anybody standing up for them," said Mehren, a retired dentist.

The following is a roundup of news regarding the races for seats on the Orange County Board of Education and the Board of Supervisors, as well as for the 74th Assembly District. * Orange County Board of Education The Republican Party of Orange County and the California Republican Assembly have endorsed businessman Tom Pollitt in his run for the District 2 seat on the Orange County Board of Education, according to a news release. Pollitt is running against incumbent David Boyd.

If there's one thing a majority of Eastside Costa Mesa residents can agree on, it's their mutual dislike of cut-through traffic. That's why the city's traffic engineering team on Wednesday night showed about 75 residents at Kaiser Elementary School some traffic-calming proposals for East 19th Street, a primarily residential thoroughfare connecting Newport Boulevard to Irvine Avenue that motorists often use en route to Newport Boulevard and the...

Bradley Zint and This post has been corrected, as noted at the end of the story. | December 14, 2013

Soon after taking the podium, Anna Vrska admitted to being a little nervous. "Oh, my goodness! This is a dead room," she remarked a few minutes later, looking up from her notes and scanning the room. "Does everybody need a break like I need a break? Catch a breath, maybe?" Vrska was standing alone before more than 100 interested parties attending November's Fairview Park Citizens Advisory Committee meeting. The 208-acre park in Costa Mesa has made news throughout the year for myriad reasons, not the least of which is the resurrection of a topic long fraught with discord: adding sports fields or retaining the passive open space.

Costa Mesa residents and officials met Thursday night to discuss conceptual plans for the future of West 19th Street in an effort to beautify the thoroughfare and slow traffic. The 1.5-mile portion of 19th - between Newport Boulevard and the western edge of the city limits near Marina View Park - is among the city's most diverse. What abuts the street runs the gamut of possibilities: businesses, strip malls, the Vista Center, The Triangle, restaurants, bars, single-family homes, apartment complexes, the Tower on 19th, the Costa Mesa Senior Center, the Costa Mesa Sanitary District headquarters and a California Department of Motor Vehicles office.

They found the home listing in the PennySaver, of all places. Todd Porter and Diane Cu barely glanced at the interior of the run-down three-bedroom, two-bathroom house when they arrived for a walk-through, and instead they headed straight to the sprawling backyard overgrown with brush and suffocated by a giant pine. "We looked at each other and said, 'This is it,'" Porter recalled. The Costa Mesa backyard wasn't neat or squared off like Southern California yards are supposed to be. Instead, the 11,000-square-foot lot was a jagged, oddly shaped U. It was perfect for the couple's plans: To carve out a quiet oasis where they could live a garden-to-plate lifestyle.